-Deccan Herald As primitive tribes continue to be in a state of acute poverty, ‘schedule area’ status for settlements of evicted tribals from Nagarahole National Park will favour their development. The status will also solve the problem of representation of tribals in political institutions, which will help them benefit from the welfare programmes aimed at them, said Muzaffar Assadi, Chairman of the High Court-appointed Committee on Tribal Issues of Rajiv Gandhi...

-Counter Currents The Aadhaar scheme of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is to provide India's billion-plus people with a unique identification number. Enrolling into the scheme was and still is not mandatory, though it was mentioned that it would be difficult for people to access public services in the absence of enrolment. The scheme requires individuals to provide their photograph, fingerprints and iris scan together with documentary personal information,...

-The Hindu Koynanagar (Maharashtra): First, a dam, then an earthquake and finally a tiger reserve — families in Satara district’s Koyna have been displaced thrice in one generation. In 1960, the people had to move, paving the way for the Koyna dam; in 1967 following the earthquake and then for the Koyna tiger reserve in 1985, says Jagannath Vibhute, an activist of the Shramik Mukti Dal and one of the many...

-The Telegraph Congress leaders today pleaded with finance minister P. Chidambaram to not compromise on social sector schemes despite constraints of a sliding economy as the party has to face a series of polls this year followed by the general election in 2014. At the annual pre-budget consultation with the party, Chidambaram explained the difficulties created by slow domestic growth and continuing global recession while admitting the importance of sustaining social sector...

-The Times of India More than five months after the CBI began investigating Coalgate, the agency is yet to receive hundreds of files from the coal ministry as it probes charges of criminality in allocation of coal blocks to private players. Although CBI has been sifting through an enormous mass of information regarding coal block allocations that the CAG has said caused a loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the government,...